Blog Preston believes in freedom of expression, but to make sure we’re getting a good debate – here’s a few guidelines to keep in mind when writing comments.

We use the Disqus commenting system. Our comments are post-moderated.  This means you can comment straight away without your comment being held in a queue to be approved.

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If you see spam or abusive comments, please report them using the flag/report option next to that comment. One of our moderators will then check the comment and may remove it.

Comments are available on all stories, apart from those with active criminal proceedings and court proceedings. We turn them off on these stories due to the risk of contempt of court and the high legal risks associated.

Please be aware we may use comments in stories about issues where readers are commenting, and publish them.

We want to see good, constructive and intelligent comments, so here’s a few guidelines on what we like to see:

– Be constructive. If you don’t like something, or don’t agree with something, say why. Expand on your views and thoughts.

– Be tolerant and respectful. We will not tolerate racist, sexist, homophobic or other hate speech, or anything that could be interpreted as such.

– Don’t swear. Swearing on the web is a bit like shouting in an argument, If you do it, you’ve already lost and people just won’t read it.

– Don’t self-promote too much. We don’t mind you putting links to relevant blog posts in comments or websites, but if you keep linking to ‘Mr Taylor’s Repair Shop’ and your name is Mr Taylor then we’ll probably remove your comment.

– Don’t say anything defamatory. Defamation is a law that protects the reputation of people, don’t say something about someone that you can’t provide evidence for. If a comment is defamatory, we’ll take it down and you’ll most likely be banned from making comments in future.

– Authors may reply. Please keep in mind that people who write for this website are volunteers, a lot of people write about their passion or hobby. If you’re going to slag them off, be constructive and be aware they might reply in the comments and challenge you. Be prepared to respond to their argument.

– Use your real name. Don’t be a keyboard warrior, if you say something on the web you should be confident enough to say it offline.

– Making a complaint. If you’ve got a complaint about an article, we’d appreciate it if you get in touch and we can either put it right or explain our words.

Above all, please do comment and contribute to the discussions on Blog Preston.